A sale starts long before the checkout. The customer journey includes the emails people receive and the social media posts they see encouraging them to visit your listings, their product searches, viewing listings and researching options before committing to clicking that buy now button.
Anyone searching on eBay for a product you sell is a potential customer. They may find you when they are in the early research phase of the customer journey, or when they are ready to commit to purchasing.
Most customers will find your listings through eBay search and you can’t control what stage they are at when they find you. All you can do is create listings that fulfill customer’s needs at every stage, shortening the customer journey and converting more of your listing’s views into sales.
Be Informative
When looking for a product, customers don’t just shop around for price, but also for product information.
The more questions that your listing can answer for a customer, the better.
If you sell a blender that can blend fruits, vegetables, and nuts, then you should list all of those things. It is not enough to say that it’s a powerful 800w blender. A customer will be looking for exact information that answers their questions in easily relatable terms that they can understand.
If a customer wants to make beetroot juice and lands on your blender listing that doesn’t specify it can blend hard vegetables, they will leave your listing to keep looking for the information they need to help them decide to purchase. They may buy the same blender from another seller, simply because that was the listing they were on at the time their question was answered
The best listings consider all of the questions a customer may have in their mind and answer them in a variety of ways. Some of the best ways are:
- Detailed description
- Bullet pointed key features
- Measurements
- Well filled eBay product specification
- Product photos from all angles
- Product in hand picture to show scale
- Video of product being used
- Video of customer testimonials
A video is especially powerful as it is effortless for the customer. It also shows us information that may be difficult to convey in text or flat images. The blender for example; how loud is it? If this were a consideration for a customer, a video would be a far more effective answer than a specification of decibels.
Blendtec is the perfect example of a brand who took full advantage of the power of videos in their product marketing. Blendtec manufacture blenders. They managed to make this normally mundane item go viral with a series of videos entitled “Will it blend?”. The videos combined humor and popular culture with product demonstrations and sent Blendtech’s sales skyrocketing.
Video can be embedded directly into eBay listings with Frooition listing design. Read more about video for eBay.
Cut out landing pages
Cross promoting other items of your own within your listings is an effective way to control the customer journey.
But cross-promotion which takes a customer to a landing page before they see the listing they have selected just ads an extra step into the sales process. It increases the risk of a customer just going back to their main search results. Create a fast and enjoyable shopping experience on eBay by letting customers take the most direct route to the item they want to view.
Frooition eBay cross-sell features take your customers directly to your listing. Speeding up the customer journey.
Use a dynamic sales assistant
One of the worst kinds of delay in the eBay customer journey is landing on a dead listing. The immediate reaction for the customer will be to click back to search results, and you will have lost them. It is important that cross-promotion is dynamic because clicking back to search results will most often lose you a sale.
The best cross-promotion in eBay listings acts just like the best sales assistants in a physical store; suggesting other items that are interesting to you and taking the work out of the shopping experience.
Dynamic cross-promotion only shows live listings that you say are relevant.
Dynamic cross-promotion gives you control and lets you make sure that your customers are seeing the most relevant items you have to end their search.
Research from Bain & Co showed that companies who excel at customer experience grow revenues 4-8% above the market. Dynamic cross-promotion improves customer experience.
Super seller Linda’s Stuff uses her dynamic cross-promotion in a very clever and intuitive way; suggesting related products not just by brand; but by size, colour, and style too.
Demonstrate Trust
When researching, customers are not just comparing products, they are comparing sellers too. This is especially true with high-value items.
Your feedback score is obviously very important on eBay because this is a clear indicator of trust.
Being clear with your delivery and returns policy is also important. If you offer free delivery or returns, make a clear point of this. A promotional box in your listing or even a dynamic tab that can show different delivery and returns options for different product categories would be perfect for this.
Be Flexible with delivery
When customers need something quickly or guaranteed for a certain date they will be going through listings comparing delivery options. Shorten their journey by letting them find an option that suits them.
Delivery is a guaranteed way to differentiate yourself from sellers offering the same products.
Delivery doesn’t always need to be free to attract customers. There are situations where customers will pay a premium to receive an item quickly. The more delivery options you offer, the more sales you will make.
